Everybody's Son

by Thrity Umrigar

  “She’s fine, Pappy.” He laughed. “She’s not a Trotskyite.”

  “Could’ve fooled me.” Pappy sighed. “Ah, the passion of youth. She’ll settle down.”

  Anton wasn’t so sure. The engagement ring rested at the bottom of his sock drawer. It seemed preposterous now, proposing marriage to Carine, when he was torn with so many doubts. Her passion, her indignation, which once seemed admirable to him, exotic, even, now felt tiresome. Sometimes he couldn’t tell if she was self-righteous or mentally unstable. It would help if he could meet her parents, see her in the context of her family, but Carine seemed in no hurry for him to visit them. Besides, the thing she’d said to him on Thanksgiving night, the conundrum that she’d laid at his feet, continued to haunt him. Was it accurate, what she had said? Or did she just have an awful knack for getting under his skin?

  A few weeks later, they were celebrating the end of classes at India Palace when Carine casually referred to a high school friend as an Oreo.

  “Oreo? Wow, that’s pretty racist,” Anton said.

  “How so? It’s not a description of skin color, per se. It’s describing an attitude—a brother who thinks he’s white.”

  The flat casualness of her tone irked him, took him back to the night of her exquisite insult. “Do you know how often you do this, Carine, pigeonhole people? You do it all the time. Maybe there are some of us who are, like, you know, not obsessed with skin color. The world has changed, Carrie. It’s not the sixties anymore. We are now in a post-racial age where we must—”

  “Post-racial? I can’t believe it. Did you really say that?” Carine’s face battled multiple emotions—incredulity, disbelief, and vexation—until it settled upon murder. She shook her head. “Honestly, sometimes I don’t even know how we got together, Anton. Do you ever hear yourself?”

  “Do you?” he began, but she cut him off. “When you look in the mirror, Anton, what do you see?”

  “I see myself. Just that. A guy who has his feet in two worlds. Who wants to act as a bridge between those two worlds.”

  She laughed humorlessly. “I’ll tell you what. Just go with me to Georgia one time. Leave behind your Harvard sweatshirt and your checkbook and the fact that your daddy is governor. And what you will see on the faces of the white men on the streets of Augusta will tell you who you really are.”

  He rubbed his forehead in agitation. “Jesus Christ. It’s like you’re stuck in some time warp. Shit. My best friend is white. I don’t think Bradley even notices my skin color when he sees me.”

  “You know why? Because you’re so damn colorless, you’re a ghost. Invisible. And if that’s how you choose to go through this life, you shithead, go right ahead. You go right ahead with your post-racial this and your Kumbaya that. I’ll just call it what it is—an identity crisis.”

  He gripped his hand around his water glass to keep it from curling into a fist. So much for a pleasant celebratory meal. He had a sudden flash that it would always be like this with Carine—that she would challenge him, nudge him, provoke him. He saw a long string of tempestuous family gatherings, and suddenly, he wanted no part of it. His love for his parents was always reinforced by his gratitude—they had been a rich, successful couple, they could’ve adopted any kid, but they’d chosen to rescue him. He would not destroy his relationship with his family because of this headstrong, impetuous black girl who constantly seemed to want to battle the world. And him.

  “Well? Black cat got your tongue?”

  He laughed helplessly. “You see? You’re incorrigible. Even your idioms are racialized.”

  “I didn’t start it, baby. It started about three hundred years before I was born.”

  He shook his head in frustration. “You know, I’ve had a tough semester. I just finished my last exam, and we’re supposed to be celebrating. Is it too much to ask that we have a nice, quiet meal?”

  Carine put her hand on his thigh. “Is that what you want, baby?” she purred. “A nice, soft, pliant girlfriend?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said, bemused. “But hell, it’d be nice to find out what one looks like.”

  Her eyes flashed, but she kept up her new persona. “I see.” She batted her eyes at him so coquettishly that he giggled. But then her hand moved higher up his thigh and he stopped giggling.

  As if to teach him a lesson, she took him to her apartment after dinner and fucked his brains out. When they were done and his eyes were still misty, she leaned over his chest and whispered, “I hope you enjoyed your sweet Valley girl fuck.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The plan had been for Anton to return home immediately after finals. But as the time grew nearer, he found himself searching the Internet for a last-minute ticket to San Diego. Bradley and his friends from Stanford had rented a five-bedroom house on the beach for a week and had invited him. He had refused earlier, but now he was tempted. After the beach vacation, Brad planned on flying to South Korea and would not get home until the week after Christmas, and Anton didn’t want to wait that long to see him. So Anton made a pact with himself—if he found a ticket for less than four hundred dollars, he would go.

  The fare came to $463, but he booked it anyway. He needed to get away from Harvard and from home, needed to clear his head about Carine. Somehow they had lost their equilibrium, and things hadn’t gotten back to where they were before the trip to the Cape. Now, try as he might, he could see her only through the eyes of his parents, and from that vantage point, he didn’t much like what he saw. He could almost hear his parents say the words: Impetuous. Unstable. Not Our Kind.

  Brad would not be so quick to judge. He had met Carine briefly and had seemed to like her well enough. If anyone could help Anton decide whether to break it off with her or not, it would be Brad.

  Brad picked Anton up at the airport and drove him to the house they were sharing with three other guys, two of whom Anton knew. The third one, Jeff, was from Seattle and seemed nice enough, if a bit quiet. Anton never figured out who had bought the bottles of booze that lined the kitchen pantry—they were all underage and unable to buy alcohol legally—but the others had already started drinking, and there was nothing to do but join in.

  He was a bit hungover when Brad shook him awake the next morning. “Come on,” he said. “Throw on some sweats and let’s go for a walk before the others wake up.”

  Anton was still groggy as they walked the nearly deserted beach. But it was nice to hear the sound of the waves, the cries of the gulls. Even in the morning fog, the Pacific looked so different from the Atlantic, with its promise of blue. Whatever his future brought, Anton hoped it included lots of travel. He would like to see all the oceans in the world before he turned forty.

  Thoughts of the future made Carine bubble to the surface of his brain. This is your brain on Carine, he joked to himself, looking out at the fog, which seemed to have entered his head.

  “So, this is great,” Brad said, giving him a sidelong look. “I can’t believe you’re actually here.”

  “Me, neither. You’re doing well?”

  “Can’t complain. Stanford’s great. You?”

  Anton sighed. “I’m okay. Actually, not so good.” He slowed his pace. “It’s Carine.”

  “What’s wrong? Last time I was there, you couldn’t keep your eyes off her. Or your hands.”

  “I still can’t.” He pointed to the wooden steps leading away from the beach. “Shall we sit?”

  “So what’s up?” Brad asked after they were settled, his face already red from the Southern California sun. “You just said you’re still hot for her, right?”

  Anton slipped off his sneakers and brushed the sand from his feet. “It’s not that, Brad. It’s just that she’s, like, wild. Mouths off the weirdest stuff at the most inappropriate times.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like . . .” And he told Brad the story of Carine’s behavior at the Cape, noting Brad’s shocked reaction with grim satisfaction.

  “Wow,” he said when
Anton finished. “She said that to Pappy? Man, that’s pretty rad.”

  “I know. And everything with her is about race. It drives me crazy.” He stopped for a second, then took the plunge. “For instance, she said the only reason you don’t . . . that you’re not aware of my race is because I’m invisible. To you.”

  Brad frowned. “That’s insulting.” He looked at Anton, squinting in the sun. “Though I’m not sure which of us should be insulted. Both, I guess.”

  “Exactly. And when I said we didn’t think along those lines, she mocked me.” Anton stopped abruptly, feeling like a six-year-old tattletale, afraid that he was betraying Carine and painting her in a much harsher light than she deserved.

  “Man, I tell you, these black chicks sure have a bug up their ass.”

  Anton turned his head sharply. Brad’s tone was confiding, intimate, unself-conscious. He had said that thing about black women as if unaware that he was talking to a black man. Damn. Carine was right. Brad didn’t even consider him black. But that was a good thing, wasn’t it? I mean, Anton argued with himself, why would he? They’d known each other half their lives. They had double-dated together, had their first sexual experiences within two months of each other, gone to the same high school, been on the school’s lacrosse team, vacationed together, gone rock-climbing together. Hell, he and Brad were like an old married couple. It would be downright odd if Bradley were suddenly aware of his blackness.

  Damn Carine. She was messing with his head. If he had never met her, he never would have noticed what Brad had said, would’ve grinned and teased him about how many black chicks did he know and was his knowledge firsthand? This was what drove him crazy about Carine—how she took something beautiful and innocent, like his relationship with his best friend, and turned it into something sinister. Carine was a tortured person, that was it, and like most tortured people, she would drag down whomever was around her.

  “Hey, dickhead,” Bradley said. “You’re not pissed by what I just said, are you?”

  Anton stared at Brad; it was the first race-specific comment he had ever heard his friend make. He rubbed the rough stubble on his face, unsure how to answer.

  “What I mean is, I wasn’t making any specific comments about Carine’s ass,” Brad continued, a goofy grin on his face. “Although it’s a monumentally great ass.”

  The sense of relief Anton felt was palpable. In response, he put Brad’s head in a chokehold. “What’s the matter, jerk?” he said. “Aren’t you getting laid?”

  Brad shook his way out of Anton’s grasp. He dug his toes into the sand and then asked, “Seriously, though. What are you going to do? I mean, you still love her, yes?”

  Anton looked out at the ocean, mulling over Brad’s question. “I’m crazy about her,” he said finally. “In many ways, I think she’s the greatest person I’ve ever met. I mean, she’s kind and loyal and funny and wicked smart. And she has a heart of gold.”

  “And the problem is?”

  “The problem,” Anton said slowly, “is that I don’t know if I can live with her. It’s exhausting. It’s like . . . she wants me to be a better person than I really am.” He looked at Brad, furrowing his brow. “You know me pretty well, Brad. You know I like my creature comforts. I’m . . . I’m basically a happy, easygoing guy, right?”

  Bradley made a face. “If you were any more easygoing, you’d slide right into Hawaii.”

  “Well, there’s nothing easy about Carine. She’s too intense, man. It’s like she wants to change the world now. Every fucking day.”

  Brad gave a single understanding nod. They sat in silence, listening to the ocean, and as the sun grew stronger, they removed their shirts, enjoying its warmth on their backs. “This is what we call,” Brad finally said, imitating their eighth-grade social studies teacher, “a classic conundrum,” they said in unison.

  And that’s exactly what it was. Anton felt young, inexperienced, and lost. He had come to California hoping Bradley would say something that would help him make up his mind, but here was the thing—Bradley was as young as he was. He wanted to talk to his father, but how could David possibly understand what he was feeling when he wasn’t even sure what Brad really saw when he looked at him? What did Brad, what did all of them, see when they looked at him—the whitest black man in the world? Or the blackest white man? Which one was he? Whom did he want to be?

  Without warning, Anton’s mind went to his birth mom. Maybe she could’ve helped him solve the riddle. And then he scoffed at his own irrationality. If she had just been a mother to him, he wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. As it was, he had only two black male friends at Harvard. And if he posited this question to them, they would look at him with contempt or, worse, incomprehension.

  He felt a sudden sharp pain in his side and yelped. Brad had poked him in the ribs and was laughing at the indignation on Anton’s face. “Man, that chick’s done a number on you. I’ve never seen you mope around like this.”

  “I’m not moping.”

  “Tell that to your face.” Brad jumped to his feet, snapping Anton with his shirt as he did so. “Ah, enough of this shit. Come on, I’ll race you to the house. We’re having pancakes and bacon for breakfast.”

  A WEEK LATER, he and Brad shared a cab to the airport to catch their respective flights. The lines at security were thankfully short, and they decided to grab a quick bite before heading to their gates.

  They flirted with their waitress, a dark-haired woman in her thirties who told them she was a surfer, and they left her a generous tip. Then they stood, grinning at each other.

  “That was quite a week, huh?” Brad said.

  “Great. I needed it. Thanks for letting me crash at the last minute.”

  “Any time. Well. See you back home in a couple of weeks. Dad said we’re doing New Year’s Eve at your place.”

  “Sounds great.”

  They hugged. Anton picked up his backpack, but Bradley lingered. “Hey,” he said. “Don’t make yourself crazy about the Carine thing. It will sort itself out.”

  Anton made a face. “Yeah, well, we’ll see.”

  Brad’s eyes searched his friend’s face. “When it’s time to break it off, if it’s time, you’ll know.”

  “How?”

  “You’ll just know.”

  Anton chuckled to himself as he walked toward his gate. This was what he’d spent almost five hundred dollars to come to California for—to hear Brad talk like Yoda. Well, one thing was clear. It wasn’t time yet. The only thing he knew for certain after a week in California was that he was horny for Carine.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  In the end, it was a white man who came between them and broke them apart. His name was Henry David Thoreau.

  For each of the four years that Anton had been at Harvard, he had made an annual pilgrimage to Walden Pond. He had first discovered Thoreau’s writing at sixteen, and it had opened up a world within him. He’d felt an immediate, almost mystical connection with a man with whom he shared little else—not race, or culture, not even a century. It was Thoreau who had introduced Anton to the idea that living a principled life was as much about what you didn’t do as what you did. That what you rejected defined you as much as what you embraced. As a junior in high school, Anton had written an award-winning essay comparing Thoreau’s “Resistance to Civil Government” to King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” It was Thoreau who’d made him want to become an English major; he had never mentioned to his dad or Pappy that Thoreau was the real reason he had chosen Harvard.

  Anton had first visited Walden Pond at seventeen. He and David had driven there and spent the day walking through the nearby woods, sitting by the pond, reading Thoreau’s writings out loud. They spoke but a few words to each other, but as they walked back to the car that evening, David had put his arm around his son’s shoulders, and Anton had felt his chest expand with love and gratitude for his father.

  His motives for inviting Carine to Walden in the spri
ng of their final year at Harvard were unclear even to him. He had spent the past year tormented over what to do about their relationship. His reasons for being with Carine were elemental, primal, beyond articulation. His reasons for wanting to break up with her were intellectual. And every day, the tug-of-war between head and heart was tearing him down just a bit more.

  It was a cold day in March with a big, dramatic sky. The woods crackled and complained as they stepped over twigs and dead leaves. Many of the tree branches were encrusted in frost. Carine had to stop every few minutes to blow her nose.

  “So what do you do when you come here by yourself each year?”

  He looked at her, surprised. “Just what we’re doing.”

  “That’s it? The same thing each year?”

  “Yup.”

  She didn’t say another word, but it was obvious that she didn’t get it. He told himself it was okay, he didn’t mind. But he did. Something pure and real had happened to him when he’d read Walden at sixteen. He remembered it well, that selfish moment of self-discovery, of finding something that belonged only to him. Up to that point, everything in his life had been borrowed. His bedroom was borrowed from a dead boy, as were his parents. His best friend was inherited, seeing as how Brad’s dad and his dad were also the best of friends. The clothes on his back, the shoes on his feet, had been given to him. Whatever he was, whatever voice he might have developed, whatever pitch he may have learned to sing in, had been lost, muted, stolen from him. In broad daylight, in the middle of the day, he had been pulled out of his home, out of his old life, and transplanted into a new one. Without even knowing it, he constantly battled a film of inauthenticity that clung to him. Black boy in a white school. Black boy with light skin and golden eyes who looked vaguely foreign, exiled among people who liked the way he looked. Black boy who dressed so preppy that the occasional black person he encountered in his rich neighborhood—maid, janitor, gardener—looked at him with puzzled eyes, trying to solve the riddle of him. No, nothing in Anton’s life had belonged to him until he got his own copy of Walden. And then it seemed to him that the book had given him a new lineage, a saintly, courageous, self-reliant man who needed only himself and nature for company and validation. A man who occupied his own skin comfortably and thoroughly, a man who never had to ask himself the deadly, unknowable question, “Who am I?”